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Wednesday, May 7, 2014

What's Up Wednesday

What's Up Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Jaime Morrow and Erin Funk. Head over to Jaime's page for links to find out what's up with everyone else. Here's what's up with me.

What I'm Reading

This week, I read Better Off Friends by Elizabeth Eulberg. I totally loved this book! It is a super cute ya romantic-comedy. Emphasis on the comedy. Better off Friends is billed as a YA version of When Harry Met Sally and just as funny. The witty banter between best friends Macallen and Levi had me laughing out loud several times.

My absolute favorite section of dialogue:

"So does this mean we're officially young adults now?" I asked her."I don't know. I've already been reading those kinds of books for a few years.""Uh-oh, does this mean I'm still a baby? I really love Everyone Poops."
This book is too funny. It really should come with a warning label or something. I definitely recommend it.

What I'm Writing

I've set my third book, that I started in April, aside and gone back to cleaning up THE EVOLUTION OF EMILY. My goal is to release EoE in October, but in order to make that deadline, I have to get it to my copy editor in June. So um, THE EVOLUTION OF EMILY will probably be coming out in November. :)

My beta readers all gave me really great feedback and I've already made a few key changes that improve the story A LOT. There are more changes that I want to make though. They involve things like re-writing entire subplots though and require a lot of work. Hopefully the end result will be worth it though.

I did have one beta reader tell me she liked THE EVOLUTION OF EMILY better than COUNTING TO D already. So if I can actually make all the necessary changes, this could be a really fabulous book.

What Inspires Me Right Now

It's spring. The North West didn't get the same crazy winter as the rest of the country, no polar vortex here, but it's still nice to see the sun again. I've been trying to get out and hike more lately. Yesterday, I went for a mini-hike at a nature park near my house with a couple friends after work. This is a very bad picture I took with my cell phone of a blue heron on said hike.

Having the sun out actually makes it harder, not easier, for me to put my butt in the chair and get done all the revisions I need to make. But I'm going to call spring my inspiration anyway.

What Else I've Been Up To

I'm going to be a parent at some point in the future. I've posted about adoption a few times, but not all that much mainly because this process takes SO LONG there usually isn't anything to say.

I can now report that our home study is almost complete. All we have left to do is review the report the social worker wrote about us and then we'll be ready to start the matching process. This means, we could potentially have children as early as this fall. But considering how long every other step in this crazy process has taken, kids by the fall of 2015 is probably more realistic.

I know every state is different, but I'm going to give a bit of advice to anyone considering adopting out of the foster care system. Use a private agency anyway. Yes, it's free if you use DHS, and they have to get involved eventually, since they run the foster care system. But DHS is also very understaffed and inefficient. So yeah, this process takes for ever. It's even worse than publishing. :)

That's so exciting that your home study is nearly complete!! I'm so happy for you!I think EoE has the potential to be better than C2D. (And I loved C2D.) There is soooo much potential there. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

Celebrating Life on the Outside

“Every advancement in human history, every scientific discovery, every artistic masterpiece, every new idea has come from an individual looking at the world in a new way. Thinking outside the box. So tell me, Samantha, why are you trying so hard to put yourself inside the box?” (Counting to D)

This is the personal website of the author Kate Scott, a proud outside thinker. In addition to sharing my own thoughts on writing, reading, and life in general, I also strive to celebrate other free thinkers.

Each Monday, I share the thoughts and stories of a different guest in my a feature I call What's Your Story. Because we all have a story to tell. What's yours?